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Does Your Pet Show Aggressive Cat Behavior?Why does your little ball of cuddly fur suddenly show aggressive cat behavior towards either you or other cats? We tend to forget that a cat is essentially an animal who can switch from being a loving domesticated, happy cat to a wild hunting animal. However there are many reasons for aggressive cat behavior some more instinctual than others.
Cat aggression towards people.Luckily aggressive cats are a lot less dangerous than dogs, and a scratch or a bite will not cause us much injury. However it is not pleasant to see children get scratched and possibly become afraid of cats.
Most of us won’t be too affected by a bite or a scratch, but if not treated properly it may become septic. The wound may also be infected with the Bartonella hensalae organism, which causes “cat scratch fever”. For most people this is not serious and may only cause an enlargement of the lymph glands. However for people with a weakened immune system it could cause serious illness. So always thoroughly clean wounds and use a antiseptic cream.
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Especially when you least expect it. To stop this behavior put a bell onto a breakaway collar so that you can hear them coming and use startle techniques to interrupt their stalking behavior. Eventually they will learn that by attacking your feet etc they will be frightened and so will stop.
Petting and biting syndrome: Some cats will attack you if you simply try to stroke them. The acceptance of being stroked is a learned feline behavior and if a cat has not had much human contact throughout its life, especially in the first eight weeks of its life, it will not be used to this contact and will feel threatened.
Make
sure that you spend some calm and quiet time often with your cat and
keep the physical contact short. If you see your cat tense up or flatten
its ears, stop touching it immediately.
Always reward your cat when they have allowed you to stroke them with a treat. Over time they will learn that you are not going to hurt them and as they relax in your company they may begin to enjoy the odd tickle.
Most people think that if cats don’t like each other it will always end up in aggressive cat behavior and a cat fight but this is not necessarily so.
Generally they would prefer just to give each other a wide birth, as injury is something they would want to avoid. However it is inevitable that cats who don’t get on will cross paths and that a cat fight will break out sometimes.
Territory: The most common cause of aggressive cat behavior amongst neighbourhood cats is conflicts over territory.
Unfortunately this is impossible to prevent and the only thing you can do is to make sure that your cats are neutered and so less aggressive and to make sure that they are vaccinated every year to stave off any infections from bites and scratches.
Hierarchy: cats who are brought up together from kittens usually remain happy cats and get along with each other just fine.
From time to time however there may be disputes over who is the top cat in the household. This may be caused by stress or overcrowding.
Cats do like a place to call their own and if you haven’t provided them all with their own cushions etc then this will cause problems.
Introducing a new cat: Your existing cats nose will be put out of joint if a new cat is introduced to the house and they will show aggression towards the new intruder. This can be minimised as long as for the first week you keep the new cat confined to one room and separate from your other cat.
Hopefully this will mean they don’t feel so threatened by each other when they do finally meet. Of course there is no guarantee that they will ever become best friends, but usually as long as they give each other space, there won’t be any aggressive cat behavior.
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